Tag: president

Do you ever stumble upon a phrase that helps you articulate something you just couldn’t quite define and suddenly it all clicks?

That happened to me recently when I discovered the term “punching down”. I was reading a movie review for Isn’t It Romantic that compared the film to another recent rom-com starting an unconventionally attractive woman I Feel Pretty. Very similar plot lines, but this reviewer felt very differently about the films. She said Isn’t It Romantic was smart, hilarious, and most importantly it doesn’t punch down.

And as soon as I read that, it clicked. That’s what I don’t like about certain comedians, certain movies, certain television shows, certain politicians. They punch down.

So what is punching down? Punching down is when someone of a higher rank, a position of power, a person of superiority makes a joke at the expense of the less powerful or an oppressed group. You might also refer to this as cheap shots, or making someone the butt of the joke.

Or as I like to call it: mean humor.

Punching down is used to make someone or ones feel small. It’s used to downplay, to belittle, to shame, or to dismiss all disguised as humor. Basically punching down is someones way of justifying being a total asshole by claiming it’s just a joke. And quite often, it doesn’t work out so well for the joker.

Remember when Jesse Watters on The O’Reilly Factor went to New York’s Chinatown to interview Chinese-American’s and proceeded to ask horrifically racist questions (do you know karate, should I bow, can I get a foot massage, and mocked their broken english)? It was meant to be humorous, it was meant to show the apparently inherent hilarity of the Chinese culture, when really it was just blatant racism against a group of minorities.

Punching down is all over the place these days. Most women’s issues are punched down (who would want to sexually harass you), our current president does it all the time, Conservatives and Republicans think it’s a fun way to go after the Democrats. Using humor as a way to discredit real issues like sexual harassment or racism just shows that you are a sexist or a racist, not that you are funny and certainly not that these issues are real.

Things that are really funny punch up. Instead of wasting their time going after people who are typically the minority or the oppressed, they go after people with tangible power that’s being abused. A basic element of humor is that your best stuff will come from going after people that are bigger than you.

There has been a lot of critique of comedy over the last few years, claiming that we are all too sensitive and everyone gets offended too easily. What can we even joke about now? To which I say that is absolute bullshit. Making fun of the weak has never been funny.

Michelle Wolf’s White House Correspondence Dinner routine was funny because she went after a powerful establishment with meticulously researched critiques and take downs. Amy Schumer making a rape joke about Hispanics isn’t funny because there is no data to back her up, so she is just further perpetuating a false stereotype of an oppressed group.

Using comedy as a tool to abuse the already abused isn’t just deeply unfunny, it also reveals a lack of understanding of how power is structured. And that is the root of what is really being called out right now. Women and minorities face daily battles and uphill challenges, and those need to be taken seriously. And the biggest factor to be addressed is the abuse of the power structure.

Making jokes about it is not the solution.

Using humor to put people down, make people feel small, silence people, and downplay real issues isn’t funny. When you punch down, you aren’t making a joke, you are part of the problem.

The last two years in politics have been an utter shit show. It’s hard to keep up with all the shit going on. The key players change weekly. The plot twists happen so fast if you blink you miss it. And we have all had to face the harsh reality that we are a nation run by racists and sexists.

But this isn’t just about surviving these four years and hoping that we still have elections and a right to vote and that we don’t end up in a nuclear war in the meantime. There are very clear, very dangerous lessons we are passing on to the next generation right now.

The youth of our nation are watching, and we are teaching them horrible truths.

What our boys have learned from this administration:-There are no consequences.
You can treat a woman however you want. You can violate her body and the law and openly brag about it. You can blame alcohol. You can deny. You can coerce. If you want it you can have it. And nothing bad will happen to you. You won’t go to jail. You won’t lose your job. You can even rise to the highest power of our nation. So what’s stopping you from taking it?

-Women are not credible advocates for their own story.
Look at Dr. Ford. She has advanced degrees, a prestigious career, and has multiple sources supporting her credibility and honesty. She was calm, poised, eloquent, and professional. And yet she was maliciously questioned, attacked, and told all the ways she had misunderstood her circumstances. Meanwhile Brent Kavanaugh can scream and cry and behave like a bafoon and his testimony is considered the credible one.

-If you don’t like the truth, you can just call it fake.
The new mantra any man can use now when someone is telling a story they don’t like: Fake News. And that ends the conversation. A woman accuses you of rape? Fake News. There is undeniable evidence that you payed hush money? Fake News. There is testimony from multiple sources that support claims of sexual assault? Fake News. Man can determine truth and lies based on what is most convenient for them. The reality they want they get.

What our girls have learned from this administration:-When men yell, they are passionate and full of conviction, when women yell they are unhinged and discredited.
We all know the narrative. If a woman expresses an emotion she must be on her period. And if she is on her period we are not to take her seriously. Because being on your period means you are irrational, and more importantly incorrect. This narrative is pushed in every platform. Find me one sitcom that doesn’t push this narrative and claim it to be humor.
And we women have learned that because of this ridiculous narrative that we must remain calm, quiet, and patient when we are fighting for what we believe.
During the last two years our girls have watched countless men yell and scream because they weren’t getting exactly what they wanted how they wanted when they wanted. While a woman calmly and patiently stood her ground and told the truth. From Hilary Clinton to Sally Yates to Dr. Ford, our girls have watched powerful and intelligent women stand their ground while men yelled and screamed at them.

-What happens to you in your teenage years doesn’t matter, because what teenage boys do doesn’t matter. Boys will be boys.
Just as boys have learned there are no consequences for their actions, girls have learned there is no protection to be found when they are violated. There is no protection, no justice, and their bodies are not their own. And more girls are learning to fear coming forward.

-His future is more important than your body.
We can’t punish him for raping you because think about his future? It doesn’t matter that he was caught in the middle of the act by two sober men who will testify exactly what they witnessed. It doesn’t matter that there are multiple women coming forward with the same story. It doesn’t matter. Because his future is more important, and we must protect his future, not your body.

We have to change the message we are sending to our children. This isn’t about republican vs democrat. This isn’t about political parties. It’s about teaching our children to be honest, respectful, and good. Otherwise our children’s fate will be worse than our own. #MeToo won’t matter, #TimesUp won’t matter, women won’t matter.

Our girls deserve better. Our boys deserve better.

The Mid-term elections are almost here. Go vote on November 6th. And maybe we can tell a new story.

It’s been a year since #MeToo swept the nation. So this month I decided to open up my platform to allow some other amazing women in my life to share their anger as well. Want to be a guest writer for Angry Feminist as well? Let’s talk! – Darci

“Ms. K—what does it mean now? Will Kavanaugh definitely be confirmed?” It was the end of Friday’s lunch period, just moments before class was set to begin. The sophomore girl looked at me, eyes wide, asking not just for answers, but for hope. She shared with me that her mother had cried in the car today while they were listening to the confirmation hearing on the radio. I felt like crying myself as I watched her face fall as I explained that, given this morning’s vote to continue the confirmation process, it seemed likely that Judge Kavanaugh would be confirmed. When I finished my answer, she stared at me as if the response had been in a foreign language. Her voice held a similar tone of shock and confusion: “But… really? After all of this? Why didn’t anyone care about Dr. Ford?”

Usually, teaching at an all-girls, college-preparatory school is inspiring. Usually I am in awe every time one of my students tells me about a game she coded, or about the social justice conference she went to, or about the non-profit she started. There is so much I should be hopeful for—so much promise this current generation of youth holds. Most days I swell with pride and the knowledge that these women are so talented and ready to take on the world and make a difference.

But somedays the world wins. Somedays I have to watch the confusion and pain in their eyes when they realize that the world might be more broken than they thought, that they might not be listened to or believed. The confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh caused days like that, as did the election of Donald Trump.

I remember the day after the election. The excitement had been palpable in the school the day before—the girls had been ready to celebrate America’s first female president. They were ready to hear that society had rejected the person who bragged about grabbing women—“they let you do it… you can do anything”—and instead took a brave and long overdue step toward equality. The shock and disappointment filled all the classes the next day. I remember the same confused faces, the hurt and the anger as well.

Sometimes, I see these brave, passionate, intelligent women shocked to the core that the world we’ve built for them is still so unequal—still so full of sexism, rape culture, and oppression. On those days, I feel so sad and so angry.

This isn’t the kind of world I want to send these young women into. I’m not proud of this world. So, I’m going to keep fighting. I’m going to tell them, “We’ve come so far, but it’s not far enough, and some people want us to go back, to surrender our rights. We can’t do that.” I’m going to tell them, “We’re not going to forget, and we’re not going to stop.” I’m going to tell them, “This isn’t the world it could be, but we’re going to keep fighting—together—so that it can be.”

My name is Darci. I am a woman in my late twenties living in Seattle. I have been a proud feminist for many years. It’s one of my defining qualities, something I take pride in.

This past year has been a difficult year to be a woman. Really, every year since the dawn of time has been a difficult year to be a woman. But for almost a century there was slow steady progress. Women can vote, inequality in the work place was being acknowledged and slowly addressed, birth control was covered under health care, and a woman was running for president. And I was beginning to believe that slow steady progress would continue. That equality was on the horizon. That I may in my own lifetime get to witness it.

But the world took a startling turn. On November 8th, 2016 Donald Trump (a man openly accused of sexual assault, a man who bragged on tape about groping women, to name a few) was elected president of the United States of America and that slow steady progress began to crumble bit by bit. It’s been a rough road this past year watching the world and I have been slowly filling with rage.

And so here I am. Full of anger. And so I have finally decided to create a space to explore my rage. Every week I will explore a new reason. Explain it, research it, cite it. Let you know exactly why I am angry. Why I think you should be angry too.

This blog is to explore all of the reasons why I am an angry feminist. All of the problems I see. All of the hurt I experience. And all the things I experience along the way.